Marilyn Katz is a Chicago based Public Relations consultant. She was an organizer of youth (primarily gangs) and communities in the 1960s. She developed a keen interest in police repression, both in "overt coercive force in the streets and in the covert infiltration and manipulation of all progressive organizations".

NAM "Anti-Racism"

In 1975, Art Larsen and Marilyn Katz wrote "DRAFT OF A STRATEGY FOR NAM ANTI-RACIST ORGANIZNG for the New American MovementDiscussion Bulletin, no. 11, September 1975.

Racism is the ideology that grew out of and reinforces the systematic and institutionalized oppression and super-exploitation of blacks, Chicanos, Latinos, native Americans, Asians and Puerto Ricans. The social, economic and political conditions or these people were created by U.S. capitalism and are enforced by both institutional racism and racism within the ranks of the working class.

New American Movement Speakers Bureau

In the 1980s Marilyn Katz was a speaker on the NAM Speakers Bureau on the subject of The Police and Repression.[2]

Support for Barack Obama

It was through the law firm that Mr. Obama met Marilyn Katz, who gave him entry into another activist network: the foot soldiers of the white student and black power movements that helped define Chicago in the 1960s.

As a leader of Students for a Democratic Society then, Ms. Katz organized Vietnam War protests, throwing nails in the street to thwart the police. But like many from that era, Ms. Katz had gone on to become a politically active member of the Chicago establishment, playing in a regular poker game with Mr. Miner while working as a consultant to his nemesis, Mayor Daley.

“For better or worse, this is Chicago,” said Ms. Katz, who has held fund-raisers for Mr. Obama at her home. “Everyone is connected to everyone.”''

ITT40 years ago this week, Chicago police battled protesters at the DNC. Two ’60s radicals remember the madness, and look to Denver for change...

The ‘68 Democratic National Convention debacle remains a symbol of everything that went wrong with American politics, society and culture in that tumultuous and iconic year. It was five days of mayhem in the Windy City, five days that left the Democratic Party in shambles...

In August 1968, those explosive battles put Chicago at the epicenter of one of the most searing political and social upheavals of the 20th century. In August 2008, a U.S. senator from Chicago will be anointed the first black major-party nominee for the presidency of the United States.

Don Rose...the political wise man has helped elect mayors and senators since then, from Harold Washington to Paul Simon. Now 77, Rose - a mentor to David Axelrod, Obama’s top campaign strategist...

The 1983 election of Harold Washington as Chicago’s first black mayor came courtesy of a progressive coalition of blacks, Latinos and so-called “Lakefront liberals.” Katz and Rose were there, once again, as advisors and operatives.

KatzMy straight line goes from ‘66/’68 to the folks who began to work together and formed the core group of the Harold Washington campaign. (Almost) everyone I worked with in 1982 I had met as a kid in ‘68. I believe that Barack Obama could only have emerged in Chicago. Why? Because since ‘68 there was a web of relationships between black civil rights groups, anti-war groups, women’s activities, immigrant rights activities, that has sustained and grown...

ITTWhat we did here in Chicago had international implications: In ‘68 there was a workers’ movement in Paris, there was a worldwide movement of students. We lost that in the intervening 40 years. Now in 2008, with Barack Obama, we have a renewed sense that the whole world is watching again.

KatzI think that millions of young people are flocking to Barack, as we did to the anti-war movement...

ITTThe Democratic Party will gather once again later this month. Everybody is expecting a big party in Denver. Will it be an Obama coronation? Is that what we should be looking for?

So how do you resolve Obama’s move to the center? What about holding his feet to the fire? Don’t we need to keep him true to progressive issues?

KatzWe have to get him into office so then we can be the left opposition. I think it is a delicate balance between those of us who are progressive, how much you push, how much you don’t want to put him in very difficult positions that would embarrass him or give John McCain some advantage...

"Support Bill Ayers"

In the run up to the U.S. presidential elections, Ayers had come under considerable media scrutiny, sparked by his relationship to presidential candidate Barack Obama.

We write to support our colleague Professor William Ayers, Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who is currently under determined and sustained political attack...

We, the undersigned, stand on the side of education as an enterprise devoted to human inquiry, enlightenment, and liberation. We oppose the demonization of Professor William Ayers.